22 July

It's the anniversary of the Loch Ness Monster's fame

So we are drinking a...

Nessie cocktail

The sighting of the Loch Ness Monster by Mr and Mrs Spicer on this day in 1933 is our particular favourite as he was actually out of the loch.

Although the monster had been spotted before, national interest was particularly sparked when George Spicer and his wife saw "a most extraordinary form of animal" cross the road in front of their car and enter Loch Ness.

A lot of people have dedicated a lot of time to seeking out the Loch Ness Monster (who lives in a Scottish lake that contains more water than all the lakes in England and Wales put together), and we think they, and the Spicers, should be applauded - if for nothing else than the entertainment they've given us - with a Nessie cocktail.

It's Prince George's birthday

This time in 2013, royal reporters breathed a sigh of relief as the artist formerly known as Kate Middleton performed the primary role of any member of the Royal Family - breeding. And, better yet, she delivered a boy: His Royal Highness Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge. And, as you'd expect from his lineage, he's a cutie.

Over his first year, the little prince, who will likely have to wait for his great-grandmother, his grandfather AND his father to die before he becomes king, has been quite the PR coup, touring the world, and interacting with commoner babies just like.... well, like a normal and rather cute baby.

Happy birthday, Prince George. We are toasting you with a Royal Gingersnap, created by Dale DeGroff.

Pi Approximation Day

Today is 22/7. Which, you will - of course - recall from school, means three and one-sevenths, or a close approximation to the irrational number, Pi.

Nobody has calculated the complete value of Pi, which describes the relationship of the outside measurement of a circle to its diameter - it can't be expressed either as a fraction or a decimal.

All the same, some historians believe the Ancient Egyptians used the ratio to build the Great Pyramid at Giza more than four thousand years ago. And mathematicians have been grappling with this crazy number for pushing four millennia too.

Today maths teachers and professors around the world will endeavour to engage their students in approximating Pi. We are sticking to a more enjoyable type of Pi - a Key Lime Pie Cocktail.

Today is also St. Mary Magdalene's Day

Poor Mary Magdalene. Famous for centuries as a prostitute who felt guilty and reformed, she gave her name to generation after generation of sex workers.

Yet, in one of those mysterious vanishing tricks that world religions seem to manage, the lady was nothing of the sort. She is recorded, in fact, as one of Jesus' disciples, one of the most informed and wisest. Yet as the liberation movement that Jesus had founded, based on equal rights for women, children, slaves and the like, turned into a religion so patriarchal that it was seriously debated whether women could have souls, Mary of Magdala was magically transformed into a prostitute. Go figure.

We are toasting the poor lady with a Slutty Mary, a spiced up, tequila-ed up version of a Bloody Mary.